Free Purgatory by Ken Bruen

dogs.”
    This did entirely for C33, who had to sit down, the laughter was so strong, leaning against the battered torso of Shaw, wiping the tears of mirth, for all the world like a couple of good ol’ boys whooping it up.
    “ Man and superman .”

16
    He who kills a man kills a reasonable creature; but he who kills a good book kills reason itself.
    —John Milton
    A new referendum on the fiscal treaty looming and the government was using every bullying tactic to cow the voters into the vote it wanted. The Army of Occupation, on Eyre Square, pledged to be unassailable. Four o’clock in the morning, forty Guards swooped and demolished the camp. They would try to enshrine the date as a new icon of anarchy. The Occupiers pledged they’d be back for Phase 2.
    The same week, Robin Gibb, Donna Summer died. A DJ termed it the final death of disco.
    A man was found beaten to death in a warehouse off the Grattan Road. He was, according to neighbors,
    “A quiet man with a love of dogs.”
    Odd the connections the mind makes. I’d been maybe five and my beloved father came home with a pup, a mongrel, with every breed included and love being the glue. An only child, I’d been beyond delighted. My mother, who was the she-wolf from the inner sanctum of hell, disguised in a sickly fuzz-buzz religion, asked,
    “Another mouth to feed and who is going to find the money?”
    A rhetorical question, as she’d already known the answer. A week later the dog was gone. She blamed my father, said he’d left the front door open. Years later, in a bad pub in a bad part of town, I’d been told by an elderly tinker,
    “Your oul wan, she gave us a pup one time.”
    I’d finished my pint, said,
    “All heart, she was.”
    He’d blessed himself, said,
    “Lord rest her.”
    Yeah.
    I was stopped almost still in the middle of Shop Street by this memory, hated her all over anew. And to add insult to memory, along came the cloud of nicotine, posing as a priest, Father Malachy, my nemesis for most of my bedraggled life. My mother’s tame escort, pious widows collected these bitter, soured bachelors, passing as priests and spreading bile.
    “Taylor,”
    He boomed.
    Hard to believe but I’d not long ago saved his miserable arse, and was he grateful? Was he fuck?
    A dedicated smoker, he had a cig between cigs and the attendant gray-yellow complexion. His loathing of me bothered me but little any more, though at odd times I relished the chance to rile the bollix.
    Malachy reached into his dandruff-flecked jacket, found a crumpled pack of Carrolls, fired up, amid a shocking fit of coughing. To think I missed this addiction? I said,
    “Still smoking?”
    Got the look and,
    “Bastards are saying I can’t smoke in me own house.”
    His face was a picture in held rage. I pushed,
    “Bastards. Your house?”
    He stared at me like I was thick, said,
    “The church, and the house is me home.”
    I said,
    “I thought the parish owned the house.”
    He seemed to be on the verge of a coronary, spat,
    “Wouldn’t be in this state if your mother had done the right thing.”
    WTF?
    So many things wrong with that sentence, I was almost lost for a reply until I got out,
    “My mother? . . . The right thing?”
    He was on his next cigarette though he seemed unaware he was even smoking, said,
    “She was supposed to leave me the house.”
    My astonishment was equaled only by his sheer blindness. I said, very quietly,
    “And her son , you don’t think he had a shout?”
    “ You ? You were a thorn in her side. She had to offer you up for the souls in purgatory.”
    I was tired of him, his whining, said,
    “You have to laugh, though.”
    “What? You pup you, what do you mean?”
    “She pissed on your bogus piety and your brown-nosing got you the same result as me in the end.”
    I’d turned to leave, he demanded,
    “Result?”
    “Yeah . . . fuck all.”
    Go Fish: How to Win Contempt and Influence People by Mr. Fish.
    Stewart pushed the book aside, just